


Bears the Falling Sky

by Trace_By_Echo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, Crossover, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Nogitsune Stiles, Possession, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:44:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trace_By_Echo/pseuds/Trace_By_Echo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways they didn't defeat the Nogitsune.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. King of Infinite Space

**Author's Note:**

> So, I challenged myself to come up with a series of ficlets before the next Teen Wolf episode airs, positing as many different ways to resolve the Stiles storyline as possible. The guidelines: no cracky solutions (there goes my happy Naruto crossover, although there will be a crossover with a different fandom), but also no solutions that I think have any chance of being what will actually happen. The point is to go boldly where the show certainly won’t. That does mean the odds are higher for an unhappy ending, which I detest as a rule, but I’m sticking to the plan. 
> 
> All ficlet titles derive from poems, plays or songs. The source material will be at the end of each ficlet. The title of the entire set of ficlets comes from A. E. Housman, and describes Stiles as I see his coping mechanisms prior to this storyline (as he is now too traumatized to laugh it off):  
> Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly:  
> Why should men make haste to die?  
> Empty heads and tongues a-talking  
> Make the rough road easy walking,  
> And the feather pate of folly  
> Bears the falling sky.

KING OF INFINITE SPACE

 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. He blanked out of their shared headspace when Deaton stuck the needle in, and when he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by blank gray walls. He’s sitting on a metal chair, one lonely light-bulb shining from directly above. It’s fizzling in a way that suggests he won’t have it for company much longer.

“Now, this just won’t do. What has happened to that wonderful imagination of yours, Stiles?” _Don’t look, don’t look…_ “This is what you think I would imprison you in?” He hears a tsking noise from behind his head. “What, exactly, would I get out of that?” The chair grows wheels and swivels around when the nogitsune pulls lightly. He closes his eyes just in time.

“You know, I didn’t care for your attempt to pull one over on me. Try to kid a kidder, will you? Very smooth, letting me get all excited about shooting the coach as a diversion for the greater game, so’s I overlook that your dad would drop everything at the slightest hint that you’re in trouble, and miss the lovely surprise waiting at his desk.” There’s a heavy sigh, breath fanning over his lips. “I can’t let you do that again, Stiles. I’m going to have to see to it that you don’t have any input on what we get up to from now on.”

He refuses to look. “How are you going to keep me here? You may have heard – I’m known for my skill at irritating people. I’ll bet I can wear you down, since I’ll be yammering in your ear 24/7.”

“Oh, but you won’t be. Irritating, that is.” Footsteps leading to the far wall. “After all, you’ll be having so much fun, you’ll just forget all about me.”

He’s surprised enough by that statement – fun? – that he opens his eyes… to his living room. He bolts upright in what is now the recliner, which protests this hasty movement by threatening to tip him out. He jumps out before it can fall over and swivels around. Everything is where it’s supposed to be, down to the stain on the floor near the TV, where he and Scott spilled soda and forgot to clean it up for just a bit too long during a Lord of the Rings marathon. “What…”

“This ought to keep you busy and out of my tails.” The nogitsune is speaking as he (it?) goes up to the closest window and closes the blinds. The moment the blinds hit the bottom of the window, they disappear – window, blinds and curtain. The wall is blank for a second, then the shelf of video games oozes into position, changing shape so that it is half as tall but twice the width it was before. He blinks. _Why is he staring at video games when there is a crazy monster monologuing less than 10 feet away?_

“Normally, I’d just remove the outside door, and let you have the windows, but you’re a sharp one, Stiles. I’ve seen that you go into the McCalls through the window, and people visit you the same way. If they’re still here, you’d use them. Can’t have that.” The nogitsune is sidling around the room, twitching his hand at the two remaining – the one – some space next to the table where his mother’s picture sits. _She gets the best light from the morning sun next to that window_ , he thinks, then promptly forgets it.

The nogitsune turns on the TV, then starts up one of his and Scott’s favorite games. As the menu cycles up, he snarls at his shadow, “Scott will never let you win. He’s coming for me! He’s like that – no matter what you make me do, he’ll forgive it. And I’ll do whatever I have to, to get out of here –“

The nogitsune cuts him off. “Of course he’s coming, Stiles. Don’t you have plans for tonight? Just best friends hanging out, like it used to be? That’s why you’re here, of course. He’ll be along, so you should just relax.” It waves a hand at the coffee table which has piles of their favorite junk foods on it. “You have everything you need, so I’ll be going now. Have fun!”

True to its word, the nogitsune exits. If he were listening, he might have heard the sound of the front door close. But since it ceases to exist a second later, he can be excused for not catching that.

He looks up at the TV screen. Then down at his cell phone. Scott’s text says he’s running a bit late, but once he brings dinner to his mom (who has another night shift, and will appreciate the gesture) he’ll be right there. He forces himself to put the phone down and get back in the recliner. He has no reason to believe that Scott’s ditching him for Allison – they’ve been off for a while now, and if he was reading the atmosphere right she’s looking at Isaac now – and Scott’s never not come when he said he would, when Allison’s not involved. Yeah, this is going to be a good night. Just a little time away from all the supernatural stuff. He settles more firmly into the cushions, and reaches for the controller with one hand, the curly fries with the other.

***

Stiles spends the rest of his life in his living room, in the back of his head. The nogitsune doesn’t fare so well in the face of the determined opposition a few ex-hunters, a druid, a banshee and a pack of wolves can bring. It only has a few days to wreak havoc in his name, before it’s expelled from his body. It doesn’t matter at that point, though. As many tricks as the nogitsune pulled, it didn’t have to fake the atrophy. It’s easier to possess someone who’s dying anyway.

Picture this: a body, in a hospital bed in one of the more specialized wards of the most expensive hospital Hale & Argent money can buy (half from grief, half from guilt). If you could look into the skull, beyond the physical level and into the spiritual level that Lydia tunes into, you might see a tiny room, with an even smaller Stiles in it, in what for lack of a better term we will call the center.

For what it’s worth, from inside the room he has no idea of the encroaching darkness. As the surrounding cells die, there is no effect on the room, which was made to shrug off all outside influence. It performs its task admirably.

Still, the time does come, a year or two later, when Stiles, humming tunelessly and starting to think that Scott might be running late ( _should he check to see if Scott texted him? Maybe he’s bringing dinner to Melissa?_ ), turns his head to see the walls crumble in on themselves, and when the illusion breaks his memory returns. He thinks that the nogitsune must have been defeated, and jumps up, grinning. He’s ready to go.

The dark tumbles in.

 

FINIS 

 

Notes:

I credit Ciceqi with the image of closing windows blocking out memories, as depicted in her Final Fantasy series "Mascotverse".

Could there be a better Shakespeare quote for this entire season plotline than the below?

From Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2:

_HAMLET: Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me [Denmark] is a prison._

_ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your mind._

_HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams._

_GUILDENSTERN: Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream._

_HAMLET: A dream itself is but a shadow_.

 


	2. And Feel Its Total Dark Sublime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are certain perquisites to being an Emissary, but also certain duties. Deaton does what he has to, to keep Beacon Hills and Scott McCall from falling to chaos.

AND FEEL ITS TOTAL DARK SUBLIME

 

(Deaton knows. He’s the one responsible, after all. As the emissary to the Hale pack, he had certain priorities – priorities that may have shifted in allegiance in the past year, but not in substance. When there’s a threat to the entire community beyond the capacity of the wolves to handle, that’s where he steps in. And very few things can be more destructive than a nogitsune.

He has few regrets. What’s done is done. He's glad he knows, from the first time around, that Melissa McCall can be trained to wield mountain ash if he ever needs a helper, now that the other person able to maintain the necessary frame of mind is permanently unavailable.

Deaton does find some of the side-effects of his ritual… distasteful, but there’s no help for it. Nothing else would have been so successful at eradicating the trickster spirit.)

***

Lydia’s feeling a little off, today. She can’t figure out why, though. She runs down the possibilities, finding none. Jackson’s being attentive but not too clingy, she’s three weeks ahead on all her assignments, and she has a trip to a new boutique (Allison’s mother is a treasure – she’s so glad she cultivated that friendship) to look forward to on Saturday. She shrugs off her unease, and doesn’t think about it again.

Since there never was a gawky boy, all long limbs and freckles, to come up to her after the third-grade science fair and declare, to her furious embarrassment, in front of the entire grade that _Lydia Martin is the smartest and most beautiful girl in the world_ , she doesn’t miss him.

***

Scott’s not having his best day ever. Which is something to say, when he has never really had a day yet. He hasn’t gotten to the point where he resigns himself to sitting with the other outcasts – and “with” would be an exaggeration, as that girl Reyes and her boyfriend Boyd don’t talk to anyone who tries to get in with them, as a rule.

Scott’s an optimist. That’s why he’s still playing lacrosse, even if it’s just from the bench, and why he doesn’t grumble when he gets home after an evening shift at Dr. Deaton’s to find his dad’s out on night patrol again. Things could be worse, Scott feels. He could have a disease worse than asthma. His parents might never have gotten over that rough patch in their marriage – and look, his dad’s hard work paid off and he’s been the Sheriff now for five years now. Just because Scott doesn’t have a best friend or a girlfriend is no excuse to feel sorry for himself. He knows he has a relatively easy life.

He winces when he sees the C- on his chemistry lab report. He’s going to need to find a study buddy, at least.

***

Of all the people involved in this rewriting of history, you _could_ say the Hales are the least affected. The fire still burns those it was destined to take. Derek and Laura still leave for New York, Cora still runs for the border, and Peter still ends up in the long-term care ward. When Peter goes out to lure and kill Laura, there’s no kid with a taste for the macabre to follow his trail. No Bite for Scott means no lurking for Derek, who grieves for his sister then heads back to New York as a depressed Omega.

(If you were wondering why Deaton hasn't performed this ritual before, to prevent the Hale Fire, consider this - maybe he has, and failed in the attempt. Destiny doesn't suffer interference lightly. On the scales of supernatural reality, preventing one inconsequential human life from existing is far easier than changing the doom of a prominent werewolf family line. On the other hand, perhaps he wasn't as fond of the Hales as he likes to claim. They are notoriously difficult to work with.)

Without a bunch of teenagers getting in Peter’s way, the Argents have no leads, and they stay only long enough for Kate to be lured off and messily murdered. Gerard would love to cry vendetta on the Hales, but none are left in town; Peter departed for parts unknown, having accomplished what he needed and not interested in Beacon Hills any longer. Allison and her parents move out of Beacon Hills less than three months after they arrived, to Lydia's disappointment, and Allison none the wiser as to her family’s profession.

***

We can’t call him the Sheriff, since he hasn’t been one since his wife died and he succumbed to the bottle. His neighbors, who remember the bright young woman he’d pledged himself to, forgive him his inability to move on. They check in on him, bring him baked dinners and homemade winter gloves, and keep him up to date on what’s going on in the world. (He hasn’t paid much attention to anything other than his memories. He’s a man built out of regrets, he thinks.)

Sometimes he wishes that they’d tried to have children. He knows that it was impossible; by the time they’d built up a nest egg, Claudia knew about her inevitable progression into dementia and wouldn’t risk having a child around that she could harm from absentminded neglect or delusional rage. Perhaps, in some other world, they’d had a surprise earlier in their marriage, when they couldn’t afford the third mouth to feed but wouldn’t have turned back from it either. Maybe some version of him knows what it feels like to be a father. What a lucky man he must be.

 

 

NOTES: Stiles is retroactively erased from reality by Deaton, who's just doing his job when he resets the timeline. In order to get rid of the Nogitsune, once it's tied itself to a vessel, the vessel has to be destroyed as well, and there's no more thorough method. (Also, does anyone else remember Victoria's laughable cover identity as a woman who scouts out boutiques, per Allison in episode 1? Yeah-huh.)

Title derived from W.H. Auden's The More Loving One:

_Looking up at the stars, I know quite well_

_That, for all they care, I can go to hell,_

_But on earth indifference is the least_

_We have to dread from man or beast._

_How should we like it were stars to burn_

_With a passion for us we could not return?_

_If equal affection cannot be,_

_Let the more loving one be me._

_Admirer as I think I am_

_Of stars that do not give a damn,_

_I cannot, now I see them, say_

_I missed one terribly all day._

_W_ _ere all stars to disappear or die,_

_I should learn to look at an empty sky_

_And feel its total dark sublime,_

_Though this might take me a little time._

 


	3. I Sing the Body Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They really should have asked Jackson for help earlier. A crossover with the Matthew Swift saga, mainly the first book "A Madness of Angels".

I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC

 

Jackson’s more than a little surprised to see a text from Lydia, asking him to call her back as soon as he can. Not only has it been over four months since their last, stilted attempt at skyping, but Lydia does her best to never sound like anything’s urgent. He indulges his curiosity and punches in her number.  

When she picks up, he opens with a jokey “So who’s dying now?” He regrets it immediately when she doesn’t respond with a sarcastic jab.

***

_Stilinski never could stop shit-stirring_ , Jackson thinks viciously. _It’s about time he got in over his head. And just because Lydia’s somehow grown fond of the asshole, doesn’t mean I need to care about it._

The part of his brain he doesn’t listen to often points out how Jackson’s been able to not worry about Lydia in that cursed town when he knows that Stiles would take a bullet for her gladly.

_That doesn’t make him a hero, just an idiot with a crush_ , he counters himself. _He’s also the first who would say we should put him down – remember how he thought they should kill me when I was the kanima?_

_Yes_ , his conscience replies. _And at that point, you would rather have died than been responsible, even slightly, for killing all those people, no? It was a lot harder to keep going afterward – death would have been merciful, if not kind._

Touché. Well, it’s not like he can do anything other than offer Lydia a long-distance shoulder to cry on. Not that she would use it, but he can offer.

_Not true – there is someone you’ve heard of who could help. Someone who understands possession and who can wield electricity enough to stun a nogitsune._

Fuck, that’s right. The man’s a nutjob – and that’s saying something, coming from a Beacon Hills native. But he might just be the one they need. Jackson’s going to have to send word through the shifter grapevine, and the quicker the better. Hopefully the man’s not off communing with a router box or something.

***

“He comes very highly recommended,” Deaton says. Scott might be imagining the slight look of doubt in his eyes, as he doesn’t hear anything but conviction in Deaton’s voice. “He has the ability to cut off the nogitsune’s power that’s derived from electricity, and while we work to pull it out of Stiles, he can go in and get Stiles to help us from the inside.”

The talented man in question looks like the cat dragged him in, after detouring through a hedge and the neighborhood Goodwill. His clothes have seen better decades, and his hair is unspeakable. All of the wolves flinch at his constantly-luminous blue eyes. He’s wandered off to the side, waiting for their decision regarding his help. He doesn’t look like he’s concerned that he flew around half the earth for maybe nothing. He looks like he’s found a new religion in Kira’s Flappy Birds game.

Scott squares his shoulders. As the Alpha, it’s his decision. There was never any real chance that Scott wouldn’t try anything and everything that might get Stiles out of this unharmed.

***

“So, we’re going to do a few things to help your friend. It’s vital that you all remember what I’m telling you. One, don’t interrupt me, no matter what you think you see me doing. Two, don’t let anyone else attack unless and until we signal you that we couldn’t get it done. Three and final, don’t panic – we know what I’m doing.”

***

Stiles has been sitting on the edge of a cliff for a while now. Once the nogitsune shoved him to the back of their head, he’s had a greater ability to craft what the landscape looks like, and he thinks the reddish scrubland and steep drop suit his mood.

One thing he didn’t put in his landscape was a companion. Yet suddenly, a tall, scruffy-looking dude is sitting next to him, feet dangling over the edge. It’s unsettling in the extreme. Is Stiles going crazier than he thought?

“Hi there, nice to meet you. Name’s Matthew Swift. Yours?” The man’s smile is disarmingly honest.

“I could tell you, but it wouldn’t work out for either of us. You can call me Stiles. So… what’re you doing here, in my head?” A thought occurs to him. “Oh, are you one of Deaton’s, uh, colleagues?”

Matthew laughs. “Not in the least. We never met him before today. Someone who’s recently moved to my city spoke for you.” Now Stiles notices the British accent. Wow, Jackson did him a favor? Will wonders never cease.

Wait a minute. “Who’s the we? You said we, but there’s just you here.”

“Oh, that’s not entirely true. We never left me. We’re always here together, ever since I died and we came back.” As Stiles leans away from the complete madman next to him – _thanks so much, Jackson_ – he sees the man glow blue and then –

***

To those in the outside world, the scene looks a little different. The nogitsune was doing the evil monologue (which, seriously, if it had read Stiles’ mind a bit more thoroughly, it would have known this was against the Evil Overlord rules), and then the strange Mr. Swift was standing behind him, his hands clamped on the sides of Stiles’ head.

Only his faith in Lydia keeps Scott from attacking Mr. Swift when Stiles’ flesh drops away, bones and blood dissolving in the wind, all except for the skull still tightly clasped in the magician’s hands. If Stiles were dying, she would be screaming louder than ever before. So he’ll remember Mr. Swift’s instructions, for now. If he gets the signal for failure, though, he’ll leap at Stiles’ murderer.

They have their hands full, anyway, as the amorphous cloud of negative energy that was the nogitsune tries to billow out of its confining circle. They have a binding ritual to perform, and little room for error.

***

Stiles is doing his best to wrap his head around what Matthew’s telling him. It’s a bit of a shock, hearing that if he doesn’t succeed at what Matthew’s asking of him, he’ll be dust.

“So, I have to persuade some of your angels – the spirits of the telephone wires and other electrical conduits – to leave you, and if it works, I’ll basically be an amalgamation of Stiles and the angels. I’ll have my memories, but I’ll be a ‘we’, an ‘us’, not an ‘I’. Stiles will no longer exist. Do I have that right?”

Matthew shrugs. “That sounds mostly right. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be both me and we. You’ll get by if you have a decent imagination.”

Stiles jerks upright from his slump. “Wait, I know what I need to pull this off. Can you talk to the others, ask them to put something in my hands?”

Matthew tactfully refrains from pointing out that the others won’t have any hands to put things in. If Stiles _believes_ that he’s holding something that will aid the integration, that belief should be good enough. “Sure, what do you want me to ask for?”

***

Luckily, Deaton always has a little mountain ash at hand (possibly because he thinks he does – it’s terribly recursive). The wolves can’t touch it without limiting themselves, so Lydia hands it to Mr. Swift, who rubs it over the skull. Then they wait.

***

Stiles is standing, hands on hips, looking at the fire leaping out of Matthew’s skin. It’s blue, and really awe-inspiring, but it doesn’t appeal to him. He’s not a city boy, and he doesn’t have any affinity for electricity beyond what’s needed to run his computer and cell. Hmmm, didn’t Matthew say that there were magicians who preferred the countryside? Perhaps that’s the key. He quickly redesigns his landscape to look like the Beacon Hills preserve, Nemeton prominently featured, and starts talking.

He talks about the sound of the wind in the trees, the gurgle of water over the rocks, and the howls of not-precisely-wolves that echo through the night. About what it’s like to run through the woods with nothing but your enjoyment of speed and danger to push you on, and how different (but equally exciting) it was to run with the knowledge that a hunter or a rogue wolf is on your heels. About what it’s like to track the movement of the stars overhead, like he and his mother used to do when they went hiking together, his Dad asleep in the tent behind them.

Stiles talks on and on about the wonders to be found in the wilderness until he starts to lose track of what he’s already said. Squinting at the blue cloud of fire surrounding Matthew, he thinks that some – not much, maybe a quarter at most – of the pinpoints of blue have started to swirl in the opposite direction from their fellows. Hopefully a quarter is enough. He decides to go for it, and brings up the yellow glow of fireflies, those creatures that bring their own natural fire with them and who are the envy of the rest of the forest. To cap off that point, he has a swarm of fireflies rise out of the faux-Nemeton.

***

Scott sees Mr. Swift’s head jerk up. His breath whooshes out when he hears him say, “He’s done it, they’re going for it –“

***

As the mass of blue lights start towards him, Stiles holds up his hands in the “wait” position. “Guys, don’t think I don’t appreciate this, because I do. But I have to ask, are you willing to change color? You see, glowing blue eyes mean something to the wolves around these parts, and if I’m going to pass you off as the side-effect of an experimental new treatment for dementia, you need to be a shade that could have once been brown.”

If it’s possible to say this of a cloud of lights, the blue looks uncertain, darting from side to side.

“How about gold, like a firefly?” Stiles wheedles. “Wouldn’t that be something to see?”

The blue abruptly turns golden, and flows forward to envelop him.

***

Afterward, when the hugs and tears are over, the new Stiles thinks he’s pretty fortunate. Since his body was rebuilt on the cellular level, it wasn’t hard to leave the dementia out of the blueprints, as it were. Sure, they can’t tell the hospital or the school that he’s cured, but their cover of an experimental treatment offered by an English doctor who specializes in brain disorders is holding up well. Matthew’s even sticking around to supervise his transition to being a different Stiles.

They’ve never felt better.

 

 

 

NOTES: this is the crossover I alluded to previously. It’s with a somewhat obscure book series, the Matthew Swift saga, the first of which is titled A Madness of Angels. Go get it from interlibrary loan, it’s worth a try.

While the chapter header is from the song “I Sing the Body Electric” in the movie _Fame_ , A Madness of Angels has its own poem, composed by the blue electric angels, which I would be remiss not to include here. Found in graffiti and spam emails throughout London, it goes:

_We be light, we be life, we be fire_

_We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind_

_we dance heaven!_

_Come be we and be free!_

_We be blue electric angels._

 

 As for “I Sing the Body Electric”, here’s the pertinent sections:

_I sing the body electric_   
_I celebrate the me yet to come_   
_I toast to my own reunion_   
_When I become one with the sun_   
  
_And I'll look back on Venus_   
_I'll look back on Mars_   
_And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars_   
_And in time, and in time we will all be stars_   
  
_I sing the body electric_   
_I glory in the glow of rebirth_   
_Creating my own tomorrow_   
_When I shall embody the earth…_


	4. I Am Not There, I Do Not Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He might be dead, but he'll never really leave. Lydia will see to it.

I AM NOT THERE, I DO NOT SLEEP

 

In this crazy world they live in, it turns out that a banshee doesn’t just foresee death – she can act as a psychopomp for those whom she claims jurisdiction over. As it happens, Stiles became one of those people the moment she held him under in a bathtub of freezing water.

Lydia isn’t inclined to let him go into whatever comes after without a fight. And a banshee is a supernatural heavyweight in the realm of death.

***

“I think you look terrific in that dress. How about you do that thing where you braid your hair around your head?” He’s sitting on top of the bedcovers, looking completely at ease ( _to anyone who can see him; current population: 1_ ); it took weeks before his instinctive awe wore off, but by now he's as comfortable as can be.

“Hmmm, no. I just did that, and I wouldn’t want people to think I was falling into a rut.” She applies her lip gloss carefully, and smiles at herself in the mirror.

“Oh, you don’t care about those people anyway. C’mon, it’s really cute. In fact, I think you should show Allison and Kira how to do it, so you can all go in one day with the same ‘do. You’ll start a trend.”

“Good God, no. We already look enough like Charlie’s goddamn Angels as it is, what with being three beautiful girls who hang out together and with Scott as our leader. We do _not_ need to look like we have a mandated style code as well.”

“Aw, does that make Isaac Bosley? My heart bleeds for him.” That’s a lie. His heart is doing no such thing, anymore. It’s been six feet underground and rotting for long enough that no blood could possibly still be trapped inside.

***

The solution to the nogitsune problem was counterintuitive, to say the least. Lydia had collated several data points before making any decisions.

Point one: it was extremely difficult to separate a nogitsune from a body that it has fully possessed. Point two: an incorporeal nogitsune simply hangs around until it can find a new host – the only time it is vulnerable is when it is embodied. Point three: Stiles was slowly dying of frontotemporal dementia anyway, and it was a waste of everyone’s time to salvage his body.

The first three points were interesting, but it wasn’t until she learned about point four from that sleazeball Peter that she was able to draw a line that led to the answer. Point four: a banshee can pull souls out of their bodies and keep them as aides, if you will, for her broader duties, provided the soul consents and no stronger supernatural creature contests her claim.

Solution: let the nogitsune have the body, and take Stiles out of it for his own good. Deaton and Kira's mom could handle taking down Stiles' body, and making sure the nogitsune dies with it.

(Scott was a little sad to hear that he wouldn’t be able to hear or see Stiles, but since it turned out that he actually _can_ see Stiles when his eyes are Alpha-red, everything’s hunky-dory in the greatest bromance of Beacon Hills. Lydia’s promised to have dinner every other night with the Sheriff and translate over Stiles’ quips, and Melissa McCall insists on occasional hugs, to be passed on. The rest of those in the know don’t appear to really care about Stiles being a ghost now. Lydia doesn't like what that implies about the Argents _or_ the Hales.)

***

As for Lydia herself, it’s been a bit of an adjustment to make, but nothing she can’t handle after the year they’ve just had. So she has to deal with Stiles all day, every day, everywhere except the bathroom – they negotiated a deal where he sits at the end of his tether, which reaches just to the opposite side of the bathroom door, and she dresses in the bathroom instead of her bedroom – but he’s not the same boy who was desperate for her attention, and she’s not the same girl who ignored him. It works.

Also, she gives the situation extra points for creeping Aiden out. He just can’t handle the fact that they’ve always got an audience now.

“Why don’t you get him to go in the other room? Can’t you make him go – it’s gotta be close enough.” Aiden whines at her, in the break between chemistry and lunch.

Stiles’ eyes are glinting with good humor as he smirks at her. He’s not a jealous spirit, but he’s still Stiles.

“No, I can’t ‘ _make him go’_. Tied together forever, remember?” While Aiden’s pouting, she continues, “Also, it’s only fair that he gets to watch, since he can’t touch anyone anymore, and he never really had a chance.” Since that angle doesn’t win any support, she follows up with, “Besides, you’re not embarrassed, are you? I didn’t _think_ you had anything to be ashamed of in this area…” she trails off, injecting the tiniest thread of doubt into her tone.

As an indignant Aiden drops his pants, she allows herself a moment of smugness. She’s still got it.

 

 

NOTES: Stiles is dead all along. I had a dreadful urge to have him tap at her window like Wuthering Heights with genders reversed, but I repressed it.

Title from “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”, by Mary Elizabeth Frye.

_Do not stand at my grave and weep,_

_I am not there; I do not sleep._

_I am a thousand winds that blow,_

_I am the diamond glints on snow,_

_I am the sunlight on ripened grain,_

_I am the gentle autumn rain._

_When you awaken in the morning’s hush_

_I am the swift uplifting rush_

_Of quiet birds in circled flight._

_I am the soft stars that shine at night._

_Do not stand at my grave and cry,_

_I am not there; I did not die._


	5. Hell of a Good Universe Next Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles leaves early to avoid the rush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the ficlets. 
> 
> Ideas I threw out for being too plausible: Stiles agreeing to be killed to defeat the Nogitsune (hey, maybe Dylan O'Brien is the one who's leaving the show for greener pastures); Deaton pulling some trick out of his ass to defeat the Nogitsune (most probable of them all); the Nogitsune leaving Stiles and possessing whichever character is being killed off this season; Derek coming up with some solution (okay, that's not too probable, but I do feel like I left him out of these too much. He's not easy for me to write).

HELL OF A GOOD UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR

 

Stiles has just about decided to limit the damage he can do to his loved ones and voluntarily admit himself to Eichen House, when there’s a knock at the front door. Despite his poor luck with opening doors lately, he goes to answer it. There’s a woman there he doesn’t recognize, with horrific claw marks distorting the dark skin of her throat.

She smiles nastily at him. “Marin Morrell sent me – she thought you might be wanting this.” She’s dangling a pendant between her fingers, and as it rotates in the air he sees an ouroboros on one side and an infinity sign on the other.

“My ex-guidance counselor didn’t strike me as someone who offers up help out of the goodness of her heart,” Stiles replies slowly, “and since I have no idea what that does, I can’t say that I do want it. Care to explain a bit more?” He’ll look it up for independent verification later, since he’s not sure he’d believe Ms. Morrell if she said that grass was green.

She answers, “It’s your ticket out of here, kid. And neither of us are helping you for free.”

***

After Stiles has invited her in and offered coffee (she accepts a green tea instead), they get down to business.

“Okay, so you’re familiar with the various theories of multiple universes and alternate timelines, yeah?”

He nods. “Science fiction geek and proud of it.”

“Fair. This bauble will do one of two things: it’ll either take you back to a pivotal point in your personal history, letting you change things from there on out, or it’ll move you into a parallel world where certain facts are different.” She doesn’t look like she’s joking. And Stiles has lived through enough supernatural nonsense to accept this as plausible.

Frowning, he asks, “Is it my choice which one it does?” His mind is racing – would either of those options get rid of the dementia? Maybe the latter, if he specified that one of the differences is no brain diseases. Hey, wait, his _mom_ –

For the first time, she looks a little uncomfortable. “It doesn’t work like that. I said there were two options, because nobody’s been able to figure out exactly which one it does – or if they have, they’re not dumb enough to let the rest of the supernatural world know that they’ve got one of these babies. They’re worth more than the 50 richest people in the world combined.”

“Why the hell should I risk using this, then? The favor Morrell wants must be out of my reach, anyway.” He sags in his seat; it hurts more to get his hopes up and then dash them, when he’d just gotten used to the numbness of despair.

“Nah, she’s pretty reasonable. One of the perks of being an Emissary is the ability to store memory in the Earth. Since she knows what you’re about to do, she can make certain preparations, so that if this universe does collapse and get replaced with a different one, she’ll still remember the differences. I think she wants to be the first person to really understand how it works. You’ll have to hand it back over once you’ve used it, of course.”

He’s doubtful. “That can’t be all that she wants.”

She laughs. “No, it ain’t, but the rest is just some regular favors. Seems you’ve got a good hand with mountain ash. She could use the occasional free assistance. You’re already doing her one favor by preventing the nogitsune from getting a toehold in reality in the first place. Chaos and strife do generate more business, but she’d prefer a break after just getting out of her contract with Deucalion.”

Stiles hasn’t quite decided what he’s going to do, but he knows which way he’s leaning. He’s not exactly getting any better offers. Scott had pledged his faith in Stiles’ ability to make it through this, and Allison had promised him a mercy kill the moment he said the word. Deaton still has his cards close to his chest, and Stiles isn’t patient enough to trust that the good vet has any intention of saving Stiles’ life. Everyone else just has sad and resigned looks for him.

“So, if I did want to use this thing, how do I do it?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? That Darach didn’t really need to kill all those people – she only thought it was necessary, because she was the kind of person who felt strongly about history and the old ways of spell-casting. When _you’re_ the one providing the power, things work because _you_ believe they do, the way _you_ think they do.”

***

She leaves him with the pendant, and a small bag of standard druidic supplies. After he’s shown her the door, Stiles looks through the bag and is relieved to see that it includes about ten pounds of mountain ash. He knows his limitations, and one of them is the mountain ash – it’s become a crutch, but he’s got no time to train his imagination out of it.

He’s promised to wait until at least sundown before using the pendant, to give Morrell time to prepare herself. He’s running on fumes, since Deaton’s trick with the poison only quells the nogitsune until the next time Stiles falls asleep, but he’s pretty sure he can make it until then, since the days are pretty short in November.

(He knows exactly _when_ he’s going to, as well. He’s not going to let his mom die again – not when he can remove the cause so easily and painlessly. A little mountain ash in her coffee, and voila! It’ll be a drag to live through the last 8 years again, but he thinks he’ll appreciate them more now. And he’ll be changing a few more things, that’s for sure. Kate Argent can kiss her unnecessarily complicated arson plan goodbye. Erica, Isaac and Boyd will have to deal with him and Scott becoming their friends. He’ll nudge Lydia a bit towards showing off her smarts, but he thinks she’ll resist; whatever, he’ll still worship her. He’ll ignore Jackson and drive him crazy doing so. He still hasn’t decided what to do about Matt, but there’ll be plenty of time to figure it out.)

As the light fades from the surrounding hills, someone walking down the street outside the Sheriff’s house might have seen a bright flash from an upper window. There's no one to ask, though.

 

NOTES: Stiles trades in this used universe for a shiny new one.

 

Title from 'pity this busy monster, manunkind' by e.e. cummings:

_pity this busy monster, manunkind,_

_not. Progress is a comfortable disease:_

_your victim (death and life safely beyond)_

_plays with the bigness of his littleness_

_\--- electrons deify one razorblade_

_into a mountainrange; lenses extend_

_unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish_

_returns on its unself._

_A world of made_

_is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh_

_and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this_

_fine specimen of hypermagical_

_ultraomnipotence. We doctors know_

_a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell_

_of a good universe next door; let's go_


End file.
